SubCURVESive Behaviour*

*I am an anglophile, if you did not know already.

And let's just acknowledge how NO ONE else could begin a missive with a footnote. 'Cept me, with my new Mavrick-y attitude. And why do I feel like this? Because my life has been hijacked/kidnapped/and just generally occupied by this and this and sweet cracker sandwich would someone save me from this. But is that really true? The begging to be saved? No! It's a Magnificent Obsession, that's what it is. And I am not alone. I've done my own damn polling around town, and I noticed a trend--one half of a couple tends to be in the tight, relentless maw of the Election, while the other half sits on the other side of the room, lips pursed and terse, repeating the same advice to the shell that was once their beloved: There's nothing more you can do. Obsessively monitoring the Web for new information does not affect the ultimate outcome.


Mayhaps there's a bit o'Palin in me, par ce que logic isn't working. I feel like my vigilance, and possibly the vigilance of me compadres is the only thing that's not only keeping this crazy Juggernaut aloft but allowing it to gain altitude. It's like me, Cole, Gail, Mel, and Tine are all sitting in a dark basement rumpus room playing Light as Feather, Stiff as a Board with Barry's body. If we break our concentration, if one of our Mom's (Spouses) clumps down the steps and pops her head in and shouts "Some one's Dad is honking in the drive way, it's time to go home!" the spell will crumble, we will drop his lanky frame and then it's back to only listening to classical VPR because I cannot stand to hear news, or the voices of the asshats who make the news.

But if no one disturbs us--no pesky siblings ("spouses") needle us, poke us, disrupt us or just generally stop us from raising him up on index and second digits, we can hold him up until November 4.

Are we not all asking what the fa-hell we ever did before we started this little endless monitoring? If we put the same energy into our election web info cruising, we might be able to contact alien life forms yet!

But enough of my David Foster Wallace tribute, what about flapping about what I came here to flap about?!?!? It's this: if my giant footnote didn't already reveal my often childish nature, the following confession surely will.

As some of you may know, I've been fucking it up at Curves since early-mid-August. It's the hokiest of gyms, full of granny-fanny church ladies of all denominations half heartedly kicking their legs on the square "recovery stations" when they are not half-heartedly operating one of the many different idiot-proof hydraulic resistance machines on the world famous Curves circuit.

I don't know why I roll my eyeballs so heavily in the Curves Gym's general direction, but I do. It's really bringing a level of eyeball rolling you normally only see in teenage girls who have fat dads who never wear shirts even when they have their friends come over and the fat dad walks in the room full of teenage girls and thinks it funny to solemnly nod and address the group thus: Hello, Men. (yeah, that never happened to me).

But I guess it's been dormant all this time, because not only do I scoff and mock the goofy place that has allowed me to drop enough weight for me to not want to immediately get out of my work pants as soon as I get home, but I am now pulling ridiculous stunts like this:

My local Curves is the only one I know, so maybe this is just the local culture of the place, but there's this fussy, fussy rule that you have to carry in the shoes you are going to wear on the circuit. There's a stringent dedication to clean floors in the joint. It's run by some universal middle class-type mom who nags you to pick up your jacket. So, they want me to change my shoes, huh? They want me to CHECKTHESOLESOFYOURSHOES, so says the nagging signs on the walls. Well, guess what Curves gym? Know what I did the last time I worked out? I stopped at the store and got groceries, walked all over a parking lot in the SAME shoes that I worked out in. Only You don't know that because as soon as I pulled up I removed the shoes, slid on a pair of sandals, walked in holding my still-warm UNCHECKED sneakers and proceeded to put them on twelve seconds later. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

It's sad what passes for entertainment in my world.